


Losing Control

by stannigram



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Divergence, Dreams, Established Relationship, Eventual Sex, M/M, Masturabation, Nightmares, canon violence, dark!stiles, instability, mentions of torture, season 3b spoilers, sexy time dreams, tagging as we go along
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-02-08
Packaged: 2018-01-10 13:49:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stannigram/pseuds/stannigram
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The darkness is slowly taking over Stiles' mind. It is slowly unraveling his life, but one thing is clear: he needs to find Peter.<br/>Or the one in which Stiles attempts to rescue Peter and, in return, Peter rescues Stiles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wicked-dance](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=wicked-dance), [letstotureher](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=letstotureher).



> This work is partly inspired by wicked-dance and letstortureher: who wanted Stiles to save Peter from the hunters in episode two.  
> Warning there will be the excessive use of the words 'darkness' and 'control' throughout this fic.

Paralysis: the inability to move, to flee, to escape the all-encompassing fear of perpetual darkness.

Eternity: the echo of scream never heard, of a plea never spoken, of a movement never acted out.

Trapped: his arms confined by the crippling fears spinning out of control. But, time moves on, life moves on, and he remains encased in an inevitable darkness.

A strong current propels him forward, pulling him under, submerging him in the darkness that surrounds him. Caught by an undertow that drags him below the surface of his vibrant consciousness and deeper into the darkness of the mind within. Filling his mouth and lungs with the air of abandonment until he’s choking on his own breath. His heart beats frantically against his rib cage with every tug. He feels he is losing his self to the darkness.  

Mentally, he grasps for anything to anchor him in the light. Something to stabilize his rapidly beating heart, but he cannot move against the darkness pressing down around him.

His senses like opaque waves crashing against him.

Knocking him down again and again.

They are a discomfort.

Like his thoughts were a thousand beestings.

An itch that can be itched.

As if the darkness is eating away at his very being and his mind desperately wants him to watch every miserable soul-rendering moment of it.

His body finally catches up with his increasingly hyper aware mind, and he can finally startle his body enough to wake it out its hyperconscious state.

He reemerges in the blinding light of his room, exhausted and unsettled. He lets relief wash over him in waves as he adjusts to the light settling around. Mouth agape, he breathes in harshly. Relishes the feel of breath passing through his lungs, and pleasant tingle of muscles stirring from their sleep. Appreciating the release of tension in his slackening muscles while he relaxes against his comfy pillows.   

His mind is fuzzy. Fragments of being trapped in the darkness still linger behind his eyes, stuck on a continuous cycle of repeating nothingness.

Even while awake he cannot escape the perpetual worry of the darkness devouring his mind. Even in the comfort of his own room—God, even in his own bed—he cannot lay peacefully because the darkness lurks in the shadows, waiting to take him.

There are strong, comforting, arms holding him through his struggles. Preventing him as he strains to get away. Soothing hands sliding comfortingly over his back to calms his nerves. There is a disgustingly calm voice whispering gently in his ear that eases his breathing. Legs tangling with his own to keep him grounded, anchoring him in this single moment.

The gentleness of the situation terrifies him, even as his heartbeat settles and his breathing evens out. Even as he folds his hands in the warmth of a rough calloused hand and someone carefully noses at his neck.

“It’s just a nightmare. Go back to sleep Babe.”

“What are you doing here?”

The confused question echoes in the room like the screams in his head, and he stares vacantly at the light blue decorating his walls. He remembers his dad painting his room after his mom passed because that is what the psychology books told them calmed kids. Ironically, the color does nothing to calm his hyperactive nerves or stop the churning of his stomach.

Something is off about the about the room, about Peter, and the door that leads out into his hallway.

Peter mumbles against his skin. It’s the name Peter uses to address him that sets the alarms off in Stiles’ mind. Never once, in the three months Stiles and Peter dating, or had been dating, had Peter used a pet name to refer to him.

Everything Peter is doing, the way he curls around him, soothes a hand against his stomach, and kisses into his air is unsettling. He is being too perfect, too caring, to be his Peter.

Stiles needs to find out where the older man’s new found compassion is coming from. Desperately needs to know, but the creaking of his bedroom door drowns the answer out and demands his attention to his recently emancipated door.

The door stands ajar. Revealing the glimpse of an immense darkness just beyond the confines of his room. The darkness speaks to him. Calling him towards his fate and forwards into the darkness. 

He has unknowingly spoken because Peter pulls him closer, while his whispers intensify: _it’s just a dream Stiles_.

The voice is begging, pleading, for Stiles not to not open the door: pleading for him to not leave the bed. _To leave it be, Stiles; just come back to bed, Stiles; for heaven’s sake, Stiles, do not open that door_.

He chooses not to listen to it because that _thing_ sitting in his bed is not the man he is in love with. It might have the same steely eyes and stupidly perfect pink lips, but there is too much tenderness in those eyes and far too much kindness flowing from those downright kissable lips, to be _his_ Peter. There is not enough snark in his words, or petulant pouting on his face, to be _his_ Peter. Just the thought of it—of that _thing_ kissing him—has him scrambling out of his bed as fast as his spindly legs will take him.  

He hesitates in front of the door. A sense of dread blossoms deep within his gut as he debates his choices: get back in bed with that thing, or follow the voices in his head. Neither of which were particularly pleasing to him.

He does not hesitate long because some un-seeable force propels his hands forward towards the handle on the door. It is the same force, the same desire, which sends him blundering around forests during the dead of night in the hopes of finding a dead body lying in a pile of leaves. The same craving for adventure that caused his best friend to be bitten by a serial killer, and opened his world to monsters who constantly try to destroy his fragile human life. Or, maybe it is just the thought of returning to that thing that fuels his human instinct to flee.

He walks hastily through the door and into an abandoned clearing. Hovers under the protection of the trees surrounding him in thickets of shadows. The forest is eerily quiet. The tree branches remain unnervingly still for a summer night. There is not the annoying hum of cicadas to goad his frazzled mind, nor the incessant rambling of mating frogs to rile his already frazzled emotions.

Nothing moves here, besides the leaves crunching beneath his bare feet. Everything is swallowed by an eerie quietness. The darkness acting like a vacuum extracting the forest’s life essence from its own roots.

Then he steps wrong.

A twig breaks.

A branch snaps.

And he is standing in the middle of a practice field. Jarringly desolate without rambunctious teenagers violently hurling balls at each other’s heads. Unnervingly quiet without the angry yells of Coach form the sidelines. Harshily meanignless without the cheers of proud families egging their children on.

Stadium lights flash on, blinding and illuminating all at once. Reminding him all too clearly of the night at the lacrosse field where he thought he saw _his_ Peter steal the life out of one of his most treasured people.

God no, this cannot be it.

It is all too much. He has to get away. So he runs untile the forest falls away before his eyes, and the trees decompose around him. Runs until he is standing in front of a new door which he seeks shelter within. His feet move of their own accord, leading him down an unknown path. Moving him forward into the cold uncertainty of the darkness ahead and further away from the saftey and comfort of the light.

Time slows inside.

The darkness is impenetrable around him.

Closing in on him.

He walks in a daze through the darkness, twisting and turning with the path, as the force pushes and pulls him ever forward to a seemingly unreachable destination. He walks until the darkness is swallowing him whole and feet ache raw. Walks until he is drowning in it and the quietness chokes him. He isn’t aware if he is moving forward or backwards, he doesn’t know how many left turns he took. He’s brain is too fuzzy from the heaviness of the air so he stops thinking and just walks.

An animalistic scream cuts through the thickness of the silence. Two pained howls follow shortly after. Familiar is their snarl and it reverberates through the tiny halls inky to be consumed by the darkness. The screams awaken something deep down him, and throwing caution to the wind, Stiles breaks into a run. The growls as familiar as if he was standing in the middle of the Lacrosse Field defying a crazy ass narcissistic psychopathic asshole, and he has to find the source. He has to know that stupid asshole didn’t just abandon him, had to know he was still alive.

He is there in front of a door now. Its old not like the one he walked in to get here. Sturdy, it won’t budge under the pressure of his fingers. It only gives a little, just enough to create a crack for Stiles to see through.  

Eyes glow blue through the dark of the hallway.

He knows those cold blue eyes staring back at him.

He would know them anywhere.

They are his Peter’s.

 

Stiles sponges the mud and sweat off his feet with a pair of Scott’s old boxer briefs that Scott had miraculously forgotten months ago. They are sufficient and effective because he can throw them away without his dad getting suspicious. He cleans all the traces of his late night excursion, as he’d started to call them, with a soapy rag. He gets every last trace from the floor, the door, and the kitchen: all of it, all gone.

Once finished he falls heavily on his unmade bed. Stares out of the window up at the darkness of the night sky as he counts the stars that shine bright in the night sky: one, two, three, four, five, the way his dad taught him after his mom died. It calms his heart more than the cleaning ever will. Fights the panic as he connects wolves in the stars hanging above his head, but that leads to thoughts of werewolves. And thoughts of werewolves lead him to Peter and Peter leads him back to dream a with a disgustingly sweet tongue licking his way into his mouth.

He is tired. His mind is unguarded. The fear that has been circling his mind strikes at this most opportune moment, clawing its way into his mind, dominating his thoughts, and beating him into fearful submission. He focuses on breathing in and out because he can fight this. He will fight this. He won’t let this rule his life, whatever this is.   

He cannot fall asleep for the rest of the night, though, and spends most of the night counting the stars up to one million. Making little butterflies out of the stars because they sound like a safer design than the werewolves that lead his mind back to his dreams. 


	2. Chapter 2

He has got to do it sometime. He tells himself now is always better than later so he straightens himself up, takes a deep breath to steady his shaking hand, and prepares himself for the ruthlessness of a dial tone. There is no going back now and he gives his self a prep talk as the dial tone rings harshly in his ear.

“Hey, Peter,” he breathes in shakily, “it’s Stiles. It’s been three weeks, you know. I haven’t heard anything from you in awhile.”

His voice cracks and he pauses to compose his self. Unlike the others, he is determined not to cry on this call.  

“Things are getting bad around here. Like really, really, really bad. A lot of strange things have been happening ever since… Well, ever since all that stuff went down with Jennifer, or Julia, or whoever she really was. We could use all the help we can get, buddy. We need you,”

An impersonal voice, detached and cold, informs him the recording is over before he finishes.

“I need you.” He finishes lamely. His hand slackening in realization and he gazes at the window. The voice continuously repeating: _are you still there?_

Putting down the phone, he wills the sharp pang of abandonment to pass as he lifts a heavy hand to his wall. Running his fingers across a collage of odd colored maps and multi-colored strings. He tries to make sense of it all, the patterns, the dreams, Peter's disappearance. But, all he sees is intangible lines mapped on the white of wrinkly old paper. 

A whistle alerts him of a message coming in, pulling him from his thoughts. He holds out hope that it’s from Peter. The name is all wrong, tough, and the text message makes no sense at all. The letters are in the wrong places. Some of the letters face the wrong way. Weird letters glare out of the mess like his phone randomly decided to program itself in a different language. He could be dreaming, he read that somewhere, and the thought scares him until he feels bile rising in his throat.

The door creaks, and Stiles is too afraid to turn around. Afraid he will find the darkness seeping out of the open door instead of his dad coming to tell its time for school.

“You gonna be okay going to school, kiddo?” The Sheriff asks, genuinely concerned, from the doorway.

Stiles registers his fathers voice, but can’t take his eyes of the screen because he doesn’t want to see the worry in his father’s eyes, or to cause his father anymore worry. In a few short minutes he’ll wake up and this wouldn’t have been reality.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be okay.”

His dad gives him a look that he is too tired to decipher, but he knows there is concern there. He leaves, linger if only for a minute, and Stiles turns his eyes back to his phone.

He cannot stop the sight of relief when he looks down and the words have righted themselves. Forming a coherent constituency of thought for his brain to process.  

Sighing, he replies to the message: _yeah Scott, I’m all right._

It is a lie, and Stiles feels a horrible because he has reached the point where can convince himself its true, and for once Stiles is really not proud of his ability to lie.

 

Stiles is starting to worry. Everyone is slowly losing their minds: Allison is seeing her dead aunt, Scott can no longer control his transformations, and he can no longer tell when he is sleeping or when he is awake. Soon the three of them will go one the biggest mass killing sprees Beacon Hill’s has ever seen if no one is here to help push them in the right direction.

They need Peter or Derek to tell them how to handle this; however, both are currently unreachable. Derek, Stiles could understand; Peter, Stiles could not.

Stiles’ list of adults who can help is significantly small to begin with. The Hales and Deaton being the only ones the list consist of. There was Chris Argent too, but Chris and he were never really properly introduced—the guy was packing ammunition so he would prefer for him not to get involved. Derek and Peter were not around. So, that leaves him with Deaton who Stiles wouldn’t trust the man as far as he could throw the man.    

Thing is he needs Peter the most. More than he needs Derek or any of the others. He needs Peter for the secret cuddles, the furtive glances, the sly comments, and the rough sex. He needs Peter because he is slowly losing his mind, needs him because Peter is stability, needs him because Peter is the only sense of a weird sort of normalcy Stiles had when this all started.

But, all he is left with is his dizzying dreams that leave him scared and confused in the morning, and the memory of glowing blue eyes shinning out through the darkness in a labyrinth of ceaseless hallways that lead him nowhere. 

It’s that thought, that need for Peter that shines its way through the darkness like a beacon guiding boats into harbors during winter storms. 

The dreams become more and more frequent; each time more detailed then the last. Like clockwork he awakes in the room with the other Peter. They repeat the same touches, the same conversations, and the same arguments every single time. The door creaks open slowly, and the darkness calls to him through the small opening. Teasing him with promises of things like power and the thrill of unknown adventures.

What happens after the door closes is what terrifies Stiles the most. It is the soul crushing fear of never being able to escape the entrapment of an encroaching darkness that really gets him. The fact that he surrenders, no, succumbs to it so easily fills his heart with dread.

In school the teachers take notice of Stiles increasing introversion and detachment from his friends. Scott and Allison try to help, but Stiles does not want this to be their burden too. They have too much going on with themselves. Isaac and he aren’t really friends and Lydia he chooses to talk about this with. Not with everything she has already been through, and is going through. He figures he can handle it himself, so he pours himself into helping his dad with recovering cold cases.

The power the nemeton has taken over his life. The darkness that surrounds his heart has stolen away his sanity. He walks the halls of his mind as if it were reality, alone and afraid. Fully convinced that it is Scott stood speaking back to him, or that it is Peter who brings him curly fries. Never fully understanding which reality he belongs too.

He lives on the fringe, right on the cusp, of two realities. Never with one foot planted firmly in either. Teetering on the edge of existence. Stuck in between two worlds and its tearing him apart on the inside. Erasing him in a mass of blinding light, and soon he will cease to exist as he stands today. He will be just a hopeless glimmer of light on a reflection of his father’s coffee cup.

It is during one of these day terrors that Stiles finally reaches the light at the end of the hallway. It is when he is there at the end of the tunnel that Stiles finally gets what this is all about, or at least what half of it’s been about.

He stands rooted in the middle of a basement, or more specifically an underground lair—he laughs because it brings up happy memories of Derek’s loft—when Peter told him about his secret tunnels to build Stiles up just so he could to break him down again.

The lights are not helpful. Not nearly bright enough for him to get a feel for the room, but it is enough to shine light on the only truth Stiles wants: Peter is there, in that basement. Hung up and strung tight against the metal mesh of a fence. Muscles pulled taught and a small sheen coats the tan skin. He watches the electricity pulsing up Peter’s body. Watches the man scream, and he cannot do anything about it.

Frozen in his place until more bodies are filling the room.

Until he realizes whom the bodies belong to and what he has to do.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just going to go ahead and tag this fic as a dark!Stiles fic because eventually it will get to that point. There are some hints to that in this chapter and also murder if you squint super hard.  
> WARNING: There will be some not super explicit sexytime dreams and masturabation in this chapter but it is not fun time masturbation nor sexy sexytime dreams. I tagged them just to be safe.

Stiles goes home that night with a sense of dread filling his heart. He cannot stop moving. There is too much to do; there is too little to do. His heart jumps at every little thing: the sound of the bees buzzing outside his window, the thud of his dad’s steel-toed boots against the hardwood floor, the tick of his analog clock ticking down the minutes until the darkness will swallow him whole again.

There is too much going on in his mind, too much economics homework he has to think about on top of the darkness toying with his mind, there is too much concern over his dad’s portion control at dinner, and too much apprehension over Peter dying before Stiles can find him. It’s got him keyed up. Ready for a fight. He won’t be able to sleep tonight.

He pulls up Peter’s number on his phone—looking for distraction. He stares at it dismally because it cannot bring back the man he desperately wants next to him.

He taps it wake anyway as a distraction to clam his bubbling nerves. Searches academic journals for how to gain power over his ubiquitous dreams. He thinks maybe he should send Lydia a text asking about how she dealt with her nightmares, but he chooses to shoot a few hilarious texts to Scott about werewolves in London instead. Scott does not text him back.

After waiting awhile, he taps his phone again to turn it off. He places it gingerly on his bedside table so he can start typing his research paper for Mr. Yukimura, but sleep is threatening to take him.

He tells himself he can control this, the dreams. He can use it to his advantage. He can will the dreams to lead him to his Peter, can manipulate them into revealing where his Peter is hidden, and distort the power the darkness holds over him. He can save Peter

With this thought in mind, he plunges headfirst into the abyss. Falling further from the light, and deeper into the false sense of security the darkness blankets him in.

 

A window squeaks.

The wind ruffles his sheets.

His bed creaks.

Hips snap against his.

There are hands in his hair.

Sharp teeth press teasingly against the skin of his unclothed chest.

His skin is suddenly unbearingly hot and deliciously sensitive all at once.

Stiles thinks he could stay here. Encased in the warmth and love that is this Peter. It is getting harder to clamber out of this Peter’s arms when the doors to his mind open up again. It is getting easier to stomach his disgust towards himself as he wakes up. Stiles thinks he can stay here, wrapped up in the smell of home and Peter. Believes he can give up the life where everything sucks, and Peter left him alone to deal with the after affects of dying on his own.

And this time he does, he stays sucking a warm tongue that licks eagerly into his mouth. Moves in time with the snap of an older man’s hips, because he cannot deny this is what his heart wants. That he yearns for loving lips that will press heated kisses against the tip of his leaking cock like they are right now. That he desires unforgiving kisses soothed by the caress of a warm tongue. That he wants things that his Peter cannot give him.   

He can’t want this, but he does. He wants to give in, give it all up, because he is so, so, so tired of fighting it all. He is so caught up in it he forgets what he is doing here. Forgets it’s just a dream, forgets to go the door, forgets that he is supposed to be looking for _his_ Peter because this Peter is fucking him so good and hard he’ll hurt for months.

 

He wakes confused and disoriented with the feel of dirt and leaves beneath his bare ass. He wakes with three fingers slicked up in his ass, and a hand gripping his throbbing cock tight. He can’t stop his body from sucking the fingers back up; he can’t control this because he is so fucking close to the edge. So close from falling off the edge, to succumbing to this thing, and that is what gets him off. Gives him the excitement to bring himself tumbling over the edge with the friction of his hands and fingers.

The world spins around him when he vomits on his feet. His vision turning upside down as tears threaten to spill from his burning eyes, but he holds them in.

Blearily, he can see his cum mingling with ugly chunks of old cafeteria steak fingers and cheese sticks. The sight is disgustingly insignificant as the weight of reality crashes down around him. The glint of something in the moonlight catches his attention. It is a knife, bloodied and discarded on the forest floor. Next to that lays a purple flower, untouched in the pale moonlight. He doesn’t allow his eyes to follow the trail of nauseatingly crimson fluid that sticks to the fallen leaves. He just picks up the flower, and ignores the dried blood on his skin.  

He doesn’t know how to feel, so he doesn’t, he just exists. He keeps on existing until he finds his Jeep and the sun is rising, and then he gets in his car and keeps existing until he reaches his house. But, a part of him is missing, and he knows it won’t be long until all of him vanishes in the darkness.

 

Once in his room, he tacks the wolfsbane on his map next to the Preserve. Working pieces of thread into place, trying fervently to connect the pieces, but the fragments of time missing are too overwhelming to piece together.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is some pack feels in this chapter and some more of Stiles being unstable and that is a bout it.

Lydia has ended up in his room, on his bed, in his sheets. Isaac is rolling around in his desk chair with a bored expression on his face. Allison sits on the edge of his bed pulling at the frays of her shirtsleeves. Scott is staring at the mess of thread, drawings, and maps tacked hastily to his wall. 

They are all waiting patiently for Stiles to start explaining, but he doesn’t want them understanding the level of crazy he’s reached in the last couple weeks so he stands close to the door incase he needs to flee. He’s just glad he threw his clothes in the wash before they came.

Scott wants to know why he smells so funny—like panic and fear. Isaac is eyeing him as if to ask him why he reeks of sex and desolation. Allison and Lydia wear apprehensive looks on their faces, and they only serve to fuel the anxiety slowly working its way through his body. He laughs and jokes it all off, all the while breaking on the inside.

Quietly, he prays they haven’t set this up as an intervention. He hopes they haven’t invaded his room as a means to tag team it up and pulverize what is left of his sanity all in one sitting. Because he cannot lose finding Peter. It’s the only thing anchoring him to this reality. It’s the only thing holding Stiles together as he is slowly coming undone, and he needs it to stay centered in the present. Right here, right now.

Stiles is trying not to think about it too much, though. He is not trying to think at all, really. He just focuses on being here and alive because at any moment he could wake up in another reality, and with Lydia lying there in his bed he begins thinking this is more dream than reality with each passing second.

He moves towards the board to work the yellow and green threads into concrete lines. They weave in and out of each other, representing the two realities Stiles lives in. They make them real. They make him feel less crazy.

The lines are tangible and give him something to do as he works up the courage bring up Peter in front of his friends. He focuses on his breathing instead of the silence deafening the room, and possible scenarios of how the Pack will react to the suggestion of rescue mission involving everyone’s favorite psychopath.

“What are the colors for?” Lydia asks twiddling the red thread between her pretty little fingers.

“Red is for all the places I can remember being in my dreams. The yellow for the places I’ve been when I wake up. Green is me retracing my steps.”

Stiles wants to say the blue is for Peter’s eyes, but it sounds creep, even in his head. He doesn’t want to freak them out more than they already are so he settles for calling it a pretty color. They seem to buy it and he mentally fist bumps his self for not screwing this up too.

Lydia says quietly, from the perch on her bed, “That is an awful lot of red.”

Thankfully, they don’t pester him about the board too much. They do stare at him like he is crazy as he starts moving the red threads around the general area of the preserve and it irritates him. His hands start shaking and he starts to wonder if getting them involved was a bad idea. It’s not like they would understand what Peter is to him; what finding Peter means to him.

Stiles hums before running his hands one last time over the wilting petals of the wolfsbane petals.

“I know you all are probably asking yourselves why I called you over so late,” he takes a breath to prepare himself for the backlash, and continues, “I think someone’s got Peter.”

 “What?” It’s Lydia who asks, and he feels horrible instantly because her voice is the embodiment of fear and agony.

Everyone looks pointedly at him for bringing Peter up in front of her, and flinging last summer right back in her face. He admits it is a pretty douchey move, and the fear in her eyes reflects the fear in his heart. He didn’t want to see that look in her face but the thought of Peter being tortured, needing to be saved, somewhere latched itself on to his mind like a parasite. Causes an itch deep in his mind, and Stiles can itch this one. He fully well intends to too, even if he has to hurt certain people’s feelings to do it.

Pushing the guilt down, he explains to Scott “Look, I’ve been seeing this building in my dreams. Peter is usually chained up to some sort of—”

“You’ve been dreaming about Peter?” Scott asks indignantly from across where he sits at the table.

“Is he naked and chained up in those dreams of yours” Isaac finishes for Scott, asking the question no one else has the nerve to ask with a carefully raised eyebrow.

“What? He’s hot.” Isaac reasons cautiously and Stiles would have laughed, really he would have, if wasn’t trying to cover up the pang of jealousy blossoming in his gut.

“Not helping,” Stiles says pointedly and continues explaining, “You remember when Deaton said my subconscious was trying to communicate with me? With that stupid ‘when is a door not a door’ riddle? What if my subconscious is trying to communicate with me here like it was back then.”

“Just what is your subconscious trying to tell you, Stiles? That he needs saving? Do you think his life is worth saving, Stiles? I for one don’t think his life is at all worth saving.” Lydia confesses casually, but her eyes are harsh and unyielding. Stiles knows convincing her Peter saving will be like walking through a field of land mines, but he is prepared to do it.

“I haven’t been able to reach Derek on his phone either.” Scott admits after they sit in silence for a while.

Stiles latches on to this. He admits he finds it odd that Derek hasn’t been replying since the two had been texting more frequently nowadays, but he could use this to better his one plans. He could use this to his advantage so he plays his part well. Pretends it’s really Derek he cares about since Peter  

Allison suggests the three of them go on a look out for Derek, and only Derek. He takes it because finding Derek means finding Peter, and that is the only thing that matters to him right now.

“You three? On a mission? Alone? You’ve got to be kidding me,” Lydia scoffs, “You’ll kill each other before you even get to the saving lives part.”

“She’s right. Stiles, you’ll try killing Allison because you’re dreaming about a monster. Scott, you’ll rip Stiles to shreds because you can’t control yourself. Allison, you’ll shoot Scott because you believe he is your dead aunt.” Isaac agrees, “We’ll go with you.”

And just like that he has everyone on his side, though it might be for all the wrong reasons. They spend the night helping Stiles narrow down the places Derek and Peter could possible be held. There is not enough information, not enough evidence, to make educated guesses as to where they would be. Stiles asks if Scott could just use his werewolfy powers to find the two, but Scott tells him it doesn't work that way.

The Pack convinces him the only way to find Derek and Peter is through his dreams. He doesn’t like the idea. He knows what giving himself to the dreams leads to, he had seen it last night, but he doesn't want the Pack thinking he is not in control of his life, so he agrees.

Then they leave because it is late and they have a test in Coach’s class tomorrow. Lydia stays behind to ask him a question, but she thinks better of it, and leaves still looking a little skeptical. He knows she knows about him and Peter. He decides he won’t push her, not after all Peter put her through. No, he wouldn’t dare ask her to help him if she didn’t want to. 

He's already to far gone to realize he wouldn't have ever thought of hurting people to get what he wants, especially Lydia. Manipulating peoples emotions for his own gain was never really his forte, and the fact he was so willing to do it for Peter should have scared him. He is too tired to debate it so he files it in the back of his mind for later, prefferably for in the morning. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I am trying to decide if I want to make this a series for tagging purposes. If I do than there will only be two more chapters to this part. Also I am doing this chapter via cell phone so excuse the errors.

The power of the darkness over his body grows stronger with each passing day. He loses a little more control over his life, his mind, and his soul each time he surrenders to the dreams.

There are days when he cannot recollect what transpired in the waking hours of his life. There are nights when he wakes at the edge of the Preserve, sweaty and out of breathe. There are whole conversations and chunks of time missing from his memory, moments of absolute darkness that span for hours at a time. There are times he stands on the verge of carnage but those are times he prefers not to think about him.

Scott is worried about him. He is constantly probing Stiles for information on Derek’s location as much as he can. Partlyt because of a genuine concern for Dere's life. Partly as a guise for checking up on his friend’s mental health, and and it only serves to agitate Stiles further.

Scott, ever the loyal friend, stays with him through the panic attacks. He nurses him through the worst of it like Stiles did for him the first few days the werewolf senses clouded Scott’s better judgment.

Scott is there to hand him an inhaler, and there to turn on the locker room showers in attempts to regulate Stiles’ escalating body temperature. He is there to make sure the other guys on the team are out of the room before Stiles collapses against the cold tiled floor. They never speak of it afterwards, and Stiles is aware of how the not talking is beginning to wear on their relationship.

Scott places a bottle to Stiles’ lips. Runs his hand awkwardly, yet soothingly, through sweat tangled hair as Stiles vomits over the cold tiles of the locker room floor. Removes and makes room as Stiles vomits over the hardness of a bench. Distracts Coach long enough for Stiles to put himself back together.

Stiles tells himself, as Scott helps him clean up, it is all worth it if he gets to see Peter again. Convincing himself he will make it through this all right, even when he envisions the darkness swallowing him whole again.

 

Coach’s yelling pulls him from his daydreams. The harsh tone of his voice interrupts the sensation of Peter fucking his body open against a hardness of a tree. The pleasured ache of wood biting into his skin vanishing as Coach’s face appears in his sight, and he offers Stiles his hand to help him up off the ground.

He is asking about something so small and insignificant compared to what Stiles is going through right now, that Stiles mumbles something unintelligible. Or maybe his sleep-deprived mind mixes up the signals to his mouth and all that comes out is a jumble of incoherent condolences. He doesn’t really know or care.

All he knows is that Peter felt as good as the soil does against his shaking body, and he wants him back.

Everyone is staring at him, advancing slowly on him, crowding him against the tree. Their shadows moving ominously towards him until the darkness is shrouding him.

Scott is there next to him when he comes back to himself in Coach’s class.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” Stiles answer calmly as he pushes his head shakily off the desk.

He continues to be fine through his next three classes. He holds himself like he normally would, with a little tension in the back and relaxed shoulders, despite the exhaustion pulling at his bones. He plays the sarcastic clumsy kid well, mouthing off at all the right times. He would say it was the most he’d been like himself since all of this started.

It is when they get to lunch that he loses all his carefully crafted control. When the noise and dullness of high school bears down on him and he feels his breath shortening in his chest.

“I gotta go.” Stiles mumbles as he chucks his lunch in the garbage and heads for the door. He ignores the concerned voices as he pushes his way past Lydia and Allison because he is so close to the door.

Then he is running fast and hard out of the doors of his school, and further into the woods. He legs humping over logs and tripping over fallen tree limbs. His body is numb to the twinge of branches slicing open his skin. He comes to a rest in front of a tree, throws his body down against the forest floor, and tries to crawl his way into the ground.

The soil moves beneath his hands, in his hands, through his fingertips. He lets the grains roll over his hands, searching for something, for what he doesn’t know. Combing through the ground until he finds something hard and shiny resting in the palm of his hand. He collects a silver bullet from the ground and pockets it for later.

 

Lydia is back in his bed. She draws intricate trees in some of his old notebooks while he tries connecting the missing pieces of his memories together.

“What is he to you?”

“Who?” Stiles replies smoothly as he rolls the silver bullet against the soft of his hand, thinking.

Of course, he knows whom she is talking about, but the Pack is making sandwiches in the kitchen downstairs. They are close enough to hear Lydia’s hushed whispers so he is stalling for until she decides to drop the subject.

He also knows where this conversation is most likely headed, and he is not prepared for the emotional unrest that is about to be unleashed through his body like hale fire.

“Don’t play dumb. You know who,” she takes a pause. Rolling her eyes when Stiles does not answer, and scribbles Peter’s name hastily out a piece of paper.

“Are you sleeping with him?”

She remains calm while asking, too calm for Stiles’ liking. He thinks that this is the end of it. That she has taken the silence as a yes and she will tell everyone. He realizes, with a sickening clarity, that he is about to lose his only chance of finding Peter. It makes him furious, but he bottles it up until he is only left with a strange sense of clam surrounding him. 

They stare at each other, waiting for the other to make a move, but neither of them does.

Her eyes are pleading with him. Trying to convince him that Peter is the bad guy. Try to show him what the man is capable of—of what the man can, and will, do to him. That Peter will use him and then discard him like he did her.

And he can see it. He supposes he has always known it somewhere, deep down inside, that Peter is just using him. It must be why he seeks out the Peter in his dreams, must be why he continues to seek him out. Now that it is here he will never be able to unknow it.

She is almost pleading for him to see what she sees in the older man, and he is angry for awakening these feelings inside him. The thought of killing her flashes through his mind briefly, but it is gone just as fast as the fury from earlier left him.

He opens his mouth to tell her completely irrelevant trivia, but she cuts him off, “Answer the question Stilinski, what is he to you?”

Stiles doesn’t know how to answer that question. Peter is too many things, and not enough things. He is the tumbling into a warm bed after a tireless battle; he’s the sound of sweat slicked skin slapping harshly against his, the unforgiving ache of addiction coursing through his veins. He is everything Stiles can’t put into words, but he is also the cause of Stiles’ slipping sanity. That is why he must find the older man, and the sooner the better.

She must see it too because she turns her head away, “I’ll help you, but only under one condition. You have to keep him away from me.” Her tone is icy and threating and every bit as frightening as Derek’s threats of maiming his body parts.

Stiles nods even though he can’t promise her anything.

“They’re holding him under that tree. ” She sighs as she points to a place on the map.

Stiles wants to know how she knows. He senses it has to do with her supernatural ability to sense dead bodies, though, and he would rather not know Peter is dying while he is sitting her with Lydia not dying.

She catches his attention, calms his breathing with promises of finding Peter, and leaves him to deal with the Pack blissfully unaware below them. She comes back to tell him by the Pack wants to act by Friday. Friday is two days away, almost two days to long.

Just two more days, he tells himself, and he will have his Peter draped haphazardly around his body. Two more days of an outstanding amount of will power, and he will be free from the darkness constraining him. But then, there is a Peter rubbing against him, and he relinquishes all his control over to the darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> This work is mostly finished and will be published intermittently.


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